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The international emergence of undergraduate education in public health has transformed the public health education landscape. While this shift is clearest and most widely evaluated in the United States, efforts in other parts of the world—such as Australasia—have not kept pace. This article aims to redress the evidence gap by identifying and discussing the different approaches through which Australian and New Zealand universities deliver public health education at the undergraduate level. A content analysis was conducted of online handbook information published by 47 universities across Australia and New Zealand, to gauge the various ways in which these universities implement undergraduate public health education. Each offering identified was assigned to one of four predetermined categories. Of the 47 universities, 45 were found to offer some form of undergraduate coursework in public health. Offerings took primarily the form of single subjects. Less commonly implemented were specializations ( n = 20), stand-alone undergraduate degrees ( n = 11), and double degree combinations ( n = 6). This breadth of activity highlights the need for renewed efforts in evaluating undergraduate public health education across the region. Further research is recommended into three areas: (1) emerging best practices in curriculum development and implementation, (2) explorations of public health accreditation in the region, and (3) the outcomes achieved by students and graduates of undergraduate public health degrees across Australia and New Zealand. These efforts will ultimately strengthen the operationalization and contribution of this education in helping shape the future public health workforce in Australasia.

A lack of understanding of the importance of public health both within the community and in the tertiary education setting is a significant impediment to improvement in population health. The international campaign “This is Public Health” (TIPH) has been promoted widely as a strategy to increase community awareness and attract and inspire the next generation of public health professionals. This paper describes and evaluates student perceptions of a TIPH photo essay and reflective task in order to explore the pedagogical and learning outcomes related to undergraduate students’ public health knowledge. The aim of the analysis was to understand (1) if the task led to increased awareness of public health, and if so, the process of how an understanding of public health develops, and (2) how the interactive nature of the experiential TIPH task leads to depth of understanding.MethodsThis study was undertaken at the University of Newcastle (UON), NSW, Australia. A qualitative study design using a descriptive case study methodology was employed. One-hundred and thirty-nine undergraduate students taking part in a semester-long, introductory public health course provided informed consent and completed a TIPH photo essay and reflective task as a compulsory assessment. Analysis of the student reflections was performed using a general inductive approach to qualitative thematic analysis.Results and discussionAnalysis of the reflections indicated that completion of the photo essay and reflective task revealed two strong thematic clusters each with a number of subthemes. The most important findings were the six strong data clusters around students’ new and deeper understanding of Public Health. Additionally, four separate data clusters around the pedagogy of the task were revealed. The task also impacted beyond knowledge improvement and academic performance. Students alluded to an increased appreciation of their own health, a new recognition of the importance of preventative health measures, and an improved analytical awareness of health determinants and the measures in place to protect health.ConclusionThe TIPH photo essay and reflective task was successful in providing undergraduate students with an experiential activity that resulted in increased knowledge and understanding of public health strategies. The task was a valuable pedagogical experience.

Opportunities for evaluating experiential learning activities in tertiary public health education are growing. It has previously been shown that utilizing the “This is Public Health” (TIPH) sticker campaign as an experiential photo essay task led to increased understanding of public health. Emerging mobile technologies such as geocaching, which provide an opportunity to increase the experiential component of the TIPH photo essay task, have not been evaluated. This study aimed to determine whether adding geocaching to the TIPH photo essay task increased the efficacy of learning about public health, when compared with the TIPH photo essay task alone. A two-arm nonrandomized trial was conducted with 785 allied health and preprofessional teaching students studying first-year public health courses. Students were allocated to either the TIPH photo essay task ( n = 210) or the TIPH photo task plus geocaching ( n = 92) according to the course they were enrolled into. The primary outcome was the quality of the definition of public health provided by students, which was assessed using the Definition of Public Health Rating Scale. Data were analyzed using a linear mixed model. Of 302 (39%) students who consented to participate, 212 (70%) provided baseline and follow-up data. After adjusting for baseline demographic differences, the geocaching group had improved knowledge of public health at follow-up according to the Definition of Public Health Rating Scale (increasing 0.29 units more than the traditional group; p = .03). As this increase in knowledge score is unlikely to be of practical significance, the additional burden of implementing geocaching may not be justified.